What I'm Really Afraid Of

I got chided by my Dad today.

Somebody's gonna get hurt real bad

For making it sound like I'll never be able to return home after enlisting into army, when all I did was to reply "I won't be able to eat chicken chop anymore(in army)" when my Dad nagged at me for eating "unhealthy" food.

Who cares about health when dinner looks like this

3 months back, I was cursing and swearing about how the wait for army will be like 3 long years. And now in an blink of an eye, I'm left with only 7 freaking days. S E V E N freaking days to a new cell home. Even the magazine that I just bought is mocking me.

I've got 1 more day than you! ROFLMAO!

Paid 2 bucks to be mocked at. Nice.

To think I was pleading "PLEASE TAKE ME, PLEASE TAKE ME" during the July intake to no avail unfortunately. But now I just wanna lock myself in the toilet so that they won't be able to kidnap me for their evil experiments.

But I'm kinda skinny actually

Oh well. They say army is a rite of passage for boys to become men. I guess it's time (NOT YET, 7 MORE DAYS) for me to face my destiny. Besides, there isn't really much to fear about army, is there? Let's take a look at some of the issues that people may have reservations about:

1) Food


They say that in the army,
The food is very nice,
You ask for mutton curry,
They give you chao ta rice.

This shouldn't pose much of a problem to me, considering I ain't exactly very picky about food. I just don't eat pork, mutton, beef, fish with too many bones, onions, garlic, cockles just to name a few. And to top it off, I've got a special talent in which I'm able to eat the same thing over and over. KFC for one week? No problemo.

2) The Supernatural

OMFG! GHOST.. GHOST!

I've heard about stories about the nasi lemak auntie that only appears at night and the right answer to her asking you to buy her nasi lemak is to point her to another bunkmate. I seriously wonder what will happen if I were to buy it. I'll let you guys know in the future. Just hope that the payment isn't a year deducted from my life span.

Also, you're not allowed to point your torchlight at the trees because you'll be "disturbing" the spirits lingering around. Fair enough, why would I wanna "see" ghosts anyway?

My philosophy is that if I didn't commit any sin, I won't be having any encounters with the supernatural. And never follow what they do in horror movies. Checking out a strange room/cupboard/toilet/movie theatre when obviously there's something spooky about it. That's what I'll call "asking for it."

3) Sausage fest toilets


Some people might be afraid of seeing others naked(and feeling inferior) or exposing themselves to others(and feeling inferior). Well, let's just say I'm confident in what I possess. Hoho.

4) Lonely Nights

When all you have is the Moon for company

This is a huge problem for most people. Especially those with girlfriends(or boyfriends). At least they have somebody to call during admin time. But personally, I believe that it's always easier to get through army when one is single. There's so much less things to worry about as compared to having a girlfriend. And you don't have to...

Booking out, see my girlfriend,
Saw her with, another man
KILL the MAN, rape my girlfriend!
with my rifle and my buddy and me EEE eee.

5) Anal Sergeants

Pump me please, I beg you

They say that in the army,
The sergeants very nice,
You talk to them nicely,
They scold you chao chee bye.

Especially when they are most likely to be the same age as you. And they steal your food and make you do push ups for no particular reason. But with everybody else taking the same shit as you, it makes you feel better somewhat.

But what is it that I'm really afraid of?

--

To be continued.

A New Name

I'm surprisingly feeling quite awake right now considering I slept with Jimmy (with one pillow gap between us and no hanky panky) last night for about only 5 hours. It's an interesting battle between us really - a battle to see who can manage to fall asleep quicker. Tragically, I lost yesterday and as a result, I was kept up for an hour due to his soothing snoring.

It's not easy to breathe right

I won the battle in Hong Kong (5 nights consecutively) when we shared the same hotel room, so I guess I don't really have the right to complain.

Anyway, we were invited to stay over at Sharon's place (though I was told that my presence doesn't really matter but despite having a shattered heart, I still went anyway) as her parents were out of town.

By the way, the "we" I'm talking about is the Fools' Club.

Tat Yi's training to be officer

Frankly speaking, I don't understand why we are named the Fools' Club. Listen to me, we should rename ourselves for I can easily think of names that are a million times better. Since there are SIX of us, what about...

Six And The City?


Hmm, too risque huh?

Never mind. What about this, Six-ophone?


Okay, guess not.

Or check this out, the best of the lot...

THE SIX PACK!

Clockwise direction from top left:
Jimmy, Evelyn, Jun Ren, Sharon, Wan Qian & Tatyi

Sixy Sexy isn't it? Told you I had brilliant ideas. Even Jam Hsiao will agree with me Sharon. Don't worry we can always expand into 8 pack once I manage to find my significant other.

And to be continued.

--

Though we are always here for you,
Ultimately, the one who can help yourself , is yourself.
You can do it. I'm sure of that.

Come Home To 5

I figured there will be days in which I'll be stuck at home with absolutely nothing to do. Today is one of them.


Well, it can't be helped considering all the girls are schooling (I don't have much "girl" friends anyway) and most of the guys are serving the army. And here I am, unable to serve the army nor go to school YET. It's like I'm some stuck bowels in some poor constipated guy.

Looks like shit but they are sausages

Nevertheless, I had to find something to do and after some severe brainstorming, I decided to watch Singapore Idiot Idol.

Considering how much I detest asS-League, I suppose I should give local talents a chance, so long they sing well and not play crappy football. And so I reluctantly obeyed "Come home to 5" and braced myself for impact.

Though it wasn't mind blowing stuff, it's still pretty good I'll have to say and a very pleasant surprise. At least it made my day more enjoyable... somewhat.

Michael Learns To Rot

Actually, it is largely due to the 8 Days magazine that I read yesterday that piqued my interest in Singapore Idol. Especially the short article about how Gurmit Singh sucks as the SI host.

Gurmeet Singh from Google Images

And amazingly yeah, I'll have to agree with 8 Days. I did watch the very first Singapore Idol in which Sylvester Sim totally butchered "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi and the judges are so fucking deaf that they all agreed it was a very good rendition. Anyway, I never felt there was anything wrong with Gurmit Singh's hosting then.

The real Gurmit Singh

Perhaps it's because the show's live or the mounting criticism that got to him, but it's undeniable that he kept bumbling through the show and kept repeating the same things over and over. You could really see that he's trying his utmost best in finding new things to say literally. (Watch SI next week to see for yourself). One particular exchange between himself and co-host Hady Mirza summed it up best.

Gurmit Singh was saying something about how nervous it must feel when the contestants were all lined up and waiting for the results to be announced. Then he mentioned something like this:

Gurmit Singh: I think you've been through it before, right?

Hady Mirza(with a "Duh" expression and tone): Of course!

And for a split second there, I could see how Gurmit Singh had a sudden realisation that he said something stupid. Kudos to him for pretending it didn't happen almost immediately. But still, I saw it. Too bad.

Moreover, why the hell is Hady Mirza the co-host?

Your very first Asian Idol

Apparently, his role encompasses being co-host and to dispense "valuable" advice to the current contestants. But the question here is, "Why is he here and not recording albums somewhere else?" Won't the contestants feel that the future's bleak even if they won the competition? They'll simply replace Hady Mirza as the co-host (or maybe Gurmit Singh if he doesn't pull his socks up) and the cycle continues.

Recyling the way to go?

Oh well. Back to the contestants, I'm pretty impressed with the guy who sang "Low" and the Secondary 4 kid who sang "Poker Face". And then something unbelievable happened.

I was so enchanted by their performances that when Gurmit Singh urged us to vote for them, I took out my phone and smsed...

"Please buy some potato chips from 7-11 before you come home" to my Dad.

What to do? I needed something to chew on for the results show.

Face(less)book

It's a wonder how my life will pan out if I didn't heed Jun Wei's advice in getting myself connected to others on Facebook. I wouldn't be able to check out my friends and see how they are doing. I wouldn't be able to "Like" it when some pretty girl became single and I wouldn't be able to show how intelligent I am with the "What's on your mind" function.

But I did plant my face on Facebook and now I have to deal with photos such as this:

Tampines Safra after graduation

Okay, doesn't seem like anything much... yet. Let's zoom in a little.

Kenneth seemed to be enjoying it, I'm just too good

Nope it wasn't planned. I've got no idea why I chose to be in such a compromising position while wearing that stupid T-shirt of mine. And can somebody explain to me why Karen Mok's so happy?

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Warning: This entry may contain spoilers and fans of Bananas.

A few days back after slaving my life away in Transcab, I got home and the first thing my Dad told me when he saw me was (loosely translated from Chinese):

Dad: Your sis bought a new book today. Check it out.

Me(glanced towards the Popular plastic bag): Oh. So what?

Dad: With her own money. For once.

Me: Now that's a surprise. (This was just a thought, I didn't exactly say it out)

I didn't check out the book she bought immediately though, for my attention was fixated on watching Rafael Nadal getting walloped by Del Potro and actually enjoying it. I hated Nadal ever since he made Federer cry.

He didn't hit the sweet spot

Pity the Great Man himself got defeated by this Del Potro guy too. And to think he's only 20 years old, he should be enlisting into army with me instead!

We could be commandos together

Life's unfair that way sometimes.

After witnessing Nadal got steam rolled over, I took out the book my sister bought with apprehension and this is what I had in my hand.


WTF! was my first reaction, frankly speaking. The title, the design, the colour and even the author's name looks stupid. And guess what came to my mind moments later?

Hint: Vivocity has it. Orchard Ion has it. But Eastpoint Mall only has one of them unfortunately.

And they are none other than the...

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, B1?"
"I think I am, B2!".

You know what I'm thinking? I'm definitely not gonna read a book about how this boy travels with this two fucking bananas on their journey to the west and about their trials and tribulations that probably involves a lot of monkeys trying to gobble them up.

Omg, what is Letty King Kong doing here?

Wanting to not judge a book by its cover, literally, I checked out the back of the book, hoping to find a blurp for a rough idea of what the book is about. And surprisingly, there was nothing. What were the publishers thinking? Only idiots will buy such a book.


Oops. My sister did.

Nevertheless, I flipped the cover over and there it was, the synopsis which read:

"The story of "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" is very difficult to describe. Usually we give some clues about the book on the cover, but in this case we think that would spoil the reading of the book. We think it is important that you start to read without knowing what it is about. If you do start to read this book, you will go on a journey with a nine-year-old boy called Bruno. (Though this isn't a book for nine-year-olds.) And sooner or later you will arrive with Bruno at a fence. We hope you never have to cross such a fence."

Wow. How intriguing. How mysterious. And how unorthodox. How can I not read the book now? Though for a split second, this creepy person's image came to my mind.

This is the other Bruno. The gay one.

It's quite an experience really. Reading a book with absolutely no idea what the book is about. Although the journey thingy in the synopsis sounds like it may be what I feared about the bananas earlier. Thankfully it wasn't.

I'm not gonna provide spoilers here I guess. But this book is definitely was one hell of an adventure, albeit from the perspective of a 9 year old boy. And the ending was ... not a happily-ever-after. Oops, I guessed I just gave some spoilers.

But if you insist on getting spoilers out of me, check out the movie trailer of the adapted film.


Riveting stuff huh?

Like The Time Traveler's Wife, I was also initially skeptical about the film, whether it will be able to capture, in this case, the irony of the boy's naiveness and ignorance as to what's happening to the world.

But it did. I've watched the film and all I have got to say that it's a must-watch. 4.5 ikan bilis out of 5 ikan bilis.


Besides you know the movie is good when 90% of the trailer's comments in YouTube are like "OMG.. This is the saddest movie I've ever watched... *sobs*", "I just can't stop crying... the ending is so saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!!" and "I can't believe the group of commandos beside us were crying like a bunch of pussies after the movie! It's THAT good!"

9% are vulgarity-laced comments such as "FUCK YOU HITLER!", "I swear if Hitler is alive today, I'm gonna be the one who kills him" and "HIT YOUR LAMPA LAH, SI HITLER"


And the 1% are those from intelligent creatures who can only come up with, "Yessssss! First to comment! Hehe!" and simply repeating this till... say around the 5th or 6th comment.

Someone give these guys a trophy or something.

Another One Bites The Dust

Today marks the day of another good friend of mine enlisting into army. It sucks seeing everybody being baptised before you and there you are still queuing up. Except that I have to queue for 26 more days. Which feels as long as queuing to enter a club.


Went Butterfactory yesterday to mourn Jun Wei's passing. No pictures because our photographer good friend who has a camera didn't go with us. Well, Jian Rong should be thankful Daphne didn't go anyway, else Facebook is going to see a lot of photos that may attract homosexuals to him. Actually, that may be what he wants (attracting homosexuals) because I really don't know what his sexual orientation is.

Tell me what makes a man...

Just kidding. He's definitely straight(I think lah) and a poor bloke who got his fragile heart broken many times. So many times that if you were to write a book about it, there'll be 1000 pages with size 4 Arial font.


Just kidding again. Though he got himself pissed drunk and humped every single thing on sight yesterday, he's a pretty nice guy actually.

Articulate with his Chinese language(he's one of those guys I can never speak English with)


Passionate about bear bricks(tell me, how many guys out there can you find who loves bear bricks?)

Bearbricks gives you orgasms! (Redbull gives you wings)

And has dance moves so good that Show Luo called personally to ask him how he did it.


Now, if you want his phone number, do arrange an inteview with me.

--

Just kidding again, again.

The Time Traveler's Wife

Ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous! (unintentional spoilers alert)

1) That most reviews of the movie were negative
2) Only a selected few cinemas in Singapore are showing this movie
3) And yet lame movies such as G Force and Where Got Ghost? are being shown by every single cinema

I know I've sinned by mutilating my sister's guinea pig while it was alive (now dead unfortunately), but for Walt Disney to produce a film about guinea pigs saving the world is way overboard. Oh come on, why guinea pigs?


Don't get me wrong. It's not like I have an extreme aversion towards guinea pigs and if they can pull off a love scene as well as Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams could, I wouldn't mind really. But the reality is plain for us to see, it's impossible.


Frankly speaking, I was a little disheartened when I read all those negative reviews about the movie. It would be a pity really, if the film does not properly capture the beauty of the novel. Having read the book roughly a month ago, I adored it and had great expectations for the live action adaptation.


It didn't disappoint. Screw those rotten reviews, though I have to agree with them that Eric Bana is naked a lot. A little too often for my liking. As a heterosexual male, seeing too much male butts (technically it's the same butt but still..) leaves me a little traumatised.

Why can't they show more of Rachel McAdams naked instead? Oh right, she can't freaking time travel like Eric Bana does. Screw the author. Why can't she write The Time Traveler's Husband instead? I'm dead certain that I'll love the book/movie more.


I won't exaggerate by saying that this movie is better than Titanic but it's still a pretty good tearjerker. Saw plenty of girls with red eyes exiting the cinema. Wanted to laugh at them for being such cry babies, but if I were to do that, I figured I'll have to disappear Eric Bana-style with the huge horde of offended cry babies breathing down my neck.

Which I can't. So yeah.

Anyway, go watch it if you haven't, I strongly recommend it. It may be about time travel and we all know how time travel can get a little messy sometimes, but overall, the movie's still pretty easy to comprehend. But if you don't like the movie, don't look for me.

Look for althalus instead.

Soothe Your Ears

Goodness me! I ought to be in bed right now... but (as always, there's always so many butts buts in my life) I'm kinda addicted to 超級星光大道 right now and well, it's worth to forgo some sleep over.


Check out the ang moh. (fastforward to 2 minutes) Well, if you leave the part in which he sang off key out, it's a pretty damn good performance from him. And unlike the previous contestant who's a Chinese, he didn't forget any single lyrics at all. Puts us Chinese to shame really.

And I hope the Singaporeans taking part in the show can PK away all the contestants in 超級星光大道.

Singapore Boleh!

A Band Slamming Proposal

It's funny how sometimes when one complains about something but given some time later, the complaint may seem as a case of overreaction. I remembered whining about why couldn't the people in charge throw me into army earlier. And that time would surely pass real slowly.

But guess what? It's already September and I'm just a month and few days shy from my enlistment. I'm pretty sure I'll be whining about how time seems to speed up a week before October 6th.


The month of August has been great. Just a quick recap, there were plenty of birthday celebrations(as compared to other months). Wan Qian, Wei Jie, Daphnes(plural not typo) and even Singapore all celebrated their birthday this month. Of course, my money in my bank got drained empty before you can even finish saying Happy Birthday.

Daphne's 20th birthday at Timbre Old Skool

And it didn't helped that I watched two movies today. Namely Band Slam and The Proposal. Oh yeah, I've watched quite a few movies this month as well. Err nope, I didn't watch Where Got Ghost though.

Where Got Ghost, Where Got Funny? Or so I heard.

The Proposal was great, despite watching it with 3 other lonely guys. Put four single lonely men together, it's either they participate in an sausage-fest orgy or watch a romantic comedy to numb the pain. Thankfully, we chose the latter.


I've read a review that claimed that The Proposal was funnier than The Hangover. It's either the reviewer's a girl or some atas ape that can't appreciate slap stick humour that veered slightly towards sexism. I'll take The Hangover over The Proposal anytime if I'm in need of some laughs.


But for singles like you(Wei Jie, Jun Wei/Hao just to name a few) and me, romantic comedies are quite a ride really. It may make us laugh, but at the end of the movie, chances are, we'll be wishing that we'll be able to find a girl to spend the rest of our lives with. At least until the girl start to chut pattern. Like when Sandra Bullock decided to put on her birthday suit.

Let's just say she looks better with clothes on.

Band Slam was surprisingly good. Wouldn't have watched it if there were still good seats for the earlier screening of The Proposal. It may be a Disney show but it's not-that-kiddy given the fact that Vanessa Hudgens had a kissing scene with someone else other than Zac Efron. Someone who is err... not as good looking.

The man in the middle, that's him

It's like downgrading your Ferrari (Zac Efron)


to a Proton Saga. (Band Slam guy)


Big difference huh?

Anyway, the main draw for Band Slam's the music really. (Like duh, it's band slam afterall) Though the song choice for the climax was a little strange so to speak, I kinda liked Vanessa Hudgens' rendition of Bread's Everything I Own, which is coincidentally track no. 9 in their album which I bought years back.

Hmm what? I don't look like those who enjoy oldies?

Anyway, here's the music video. (the arrangement is way different from the one in the movie.)


Everything I Own

You sheltered me from harm.
Kept me warm, kept me warm
You gave my life to me
Set me free, set me free
The finest years I ever knew
Were all the years I had with you

I would give anything I own,
Give up my life, my heart, my home.
I would give everything I own,
Just to have you back again.

You taught me how to love,
What its of, what its of.
You never said too much,
But still you showed the way,
And I knew from watching you.
Nobody else could ever know
The part of me that cant let go.

I would give anything I own,
Give up my life, my heart, my home.
I would give everything I own
Just to have you back again.

Is there someone you know,
You're loving them so,
But taking them all for granted.
You may lose them one day,
Someone takes them away,
And they dont hear the words you longed to say

I would give anything I own,
Give up my life, my heart, my home.
I would give everything I own
Just to have you back again.

--

That's what I'd call good and meaningful lyrics man. Songs these days are losing touch with humanity with their lyrics. Boom Boom Boom anyone?